Kings and presidents die, and nobody cares, Muhammad Ali once said. But Joe Louis died, and everybody cried.
Are they crying now for Muhammad Ali, who died Friday in Scottsdale, Ariz. of complications from Parkinson’s disease? No doubt.
Boxers are perhaps the most poignant of athletes, for in a sense, they absorb the blows for the rest of us. Boxing, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates observed in her nonfiction work, “On Boxing,” is “America’s tragic theater.” ...
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Interesting article in the Nov. 4 edition of The New York Times by David Leonhardt, “The Upshot” columnist, about the decline of youth football among liberal, well-educated families.
Leonhardt points to boxing and horse racing – once household sports – as well as to smoking and seatbelts as examples of how public opinion can change culture.
Technology can change sports and culture, too. In the 1970s and ’80s, tennis was dominated by teenagers. Then the rackets became larger and graphite and tennis turned from a touch serve-and-volley game to a power baseline one played by adults.
Football changed, too. Improvements in the helmets and padding meant that the body could withstand greater hits. The problem is that the brain can’t, with concussions and sub-concussive experiences leading to early on-set dementia and no doubt playing a role in the NFL’s domestic violence crisis.
The neuroscience on football has also spurred parents to say “not my child." And if enough parents say that, experts note, the sport is dead. ...
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